Monthly Archives: February 2014

This article was originally printed in the ABA Section of Family Law eNewsletter, January 2014.

The vast majority of family law cases are settled without trials. However, a client should not enter into a voluntary settlement if there are significant concerns about the truth of the financial disclosures and indications that assets or income may be hidden. The first step in determining whether a forensic accountant is needed to evaluate the finances of the parties is the identification of “red flags” of fraud. A red flag is simply a warning sign or an unusual item or circumstance.

Attorneys often use their instinct to determine when a forensic accountant is needed in a family law case. If something does not feel right, it probably should be investigated. A client is often suspicious of the spouse even before they are separated. The spouse may even be known to manipulate the money. Read More →

Are you considering doing business with Sharon’s Wig Salon in Brookfield, Wisconsin? Think again. Here is a brain tumor patient’s horrific experience with owner Sharon Heyden. It is bad enough that Sharon and her employee treated Alison Ziebell (a mother who is undergoing radiation treatments and is in need of a wig) poorly from a customer service standpoint. But when Alison decided to leave the store (since they didn’t want to actually help her find a wig she liked), she says that Sharon stated:

Good luck, I hope ALL your hair falls out.

Why would anyone say that to a young woman shopping for a wig…. who quite possibly might be on the verge of her hair falling out due to her medical condition????

Good luck, Sharon Heyden of Sharon’s Wig Salon. I hope your business fails when the world finds out what a horrible human being you are.

Even with all of the publicity surrounding the issue of financial fraud in the last decade, most auditors, investors and other professionals still do not “get it” when it comes to detecting fraud. Traditional financial statement audits were never designed to detect fraud. The audit is simply a process by which auditors check the company’s math and application of accounting rules.

Fraud is rarely detected by financial statement audits because they are not designed to do so. Occasionally, fraud is detected by auditors, but they could increase their chances of finding fraud if they changed their audit procedures. Read More →